How Your Parents Helped Make You An Entrepreneur

BusinessNewsDaily reports that new research finds that your parents had a lot more to do with your career choice than you thought.

Psychologist George Holden at Southern Methodist University hypothesizes that parents guide their children’s development in four complex and dynamic ways:

1. Parents initiate trajectories, sometimes trying to steer their child in a preferred developmental path based on either the parents’ preferences or their observations of the child’s characteristics and abilities, such as enrolling their child in a class, exposing them to people and places, or taking a child to practices or lessons.

2. Parents also sustain their child’s progress along trajectories with encouragement and praise, by providing material assistance such as books, equipment or tutoring, and by allocating time to practice or participate in certain activities.

3. Parents mediate trajectories, which influences how their child perceives and understands a trajectory, and help their child steer clear of negative trajectories by preparing the child to deal with potential problems.